Friday, May 10, 2013

No Worries Polish Guest Post: Hand-Crafted by a US Army Wife!

Hi all! It's Ariel from over at Lacquer: The Best Medicine! I have a really really special post for you today; it's a review of a polish I received from a girl I met on Etsy while I was browsing for new indie brands. It turns out Nicci of No Worries Polish(the name of the shop is reallly interesting - read more about it at the end of the post!) is living out in Saudi Arabia right now, as her husband is station there for the US Army. Hats off to both of them, and a big thank you for keeping our great country safe and free!

At the bottom of this post I am going to share with you Nicci's story of how she started her nail polish craze. It's amazing and heart warming and I really encourage you to read it and then head over to her Etsy shop to show your support for her and for our troops! Go Team USA! :-)

Here is a beauty of a polish: It's called Coral Reef and it is made up of a aqua blue/turquoise creme base, and two sizes of coral glitter. This is my favorite polish from her store, and get this: I only needed ONE COAT! That's my kinda' polish! The application was SOO smooth and easy, and there was no streakiness or bald areas. Just the perfect formula!

Here is Nicci's story. PLEASE read it and support her and our troops overseas!

I met Bob, the man that is now my husband 3 years ago. He came into the small town store that I worked at to help his 8 months pregnant sister-in-law get balloons for her brother's 30th birthday. I was the girl that inflated the balloons.

If you would have told me that 3 months later he and I would be dating (thanks in large part to our sister-in-law), and that a year after that we would be married, and planning a move to a duty station in the Middle East, I would have told you, you were crazy.

But, that's what happened. And the funny thing is, my parents, grandparents, and his parents, knew it as soon as they saw us together.

My husband is my hero, and I would follow him to the ends of the Earth. He's something I had honestly believed I would never have in a spouse. I didn't think men like him existed, but I know now that they do. He supports me, he's proud of me, and he's my biggest fan. He's also one of the strongest people I've ever met.

He's a 2 time cancer survivor, and he found out he had cancer when he was deployed in Iraq, of all places. He had known there was something wrong before he left, but he didn't want to abandon his team, so, he ignored the warning signs and went anyway.

After they found the tumor he went through treatment at Walter Reed, not knowing if he was going to be diagnosed as terminal, and not knowing if he was going to suffer permanent damage. After his first tumor was resected, and he was given a clean bill of health, he put his uniform back on, and went back to work.

The second time was 6 months after we started dating. He went in for his checkup, and they found a tumor. I was with him, and we were both shocked. He had shown no symptoms, but there it was on film, clear as day. I promised him I would be there for him, because the last time he was largely alone because he didn't have a significant other, and he didn't want his family to see him in such a state, and told them not to come even though they wanted to. He can be stubborn, to say the least.

The day after he had his second tumor resected, he went back to work. He didn't even consider taking a day or two of leave, even though his bosses, and I told him it would be ok.

Most people don't even know he went through all of that. Because despite it, he was and is a happy person.

Before I met him I was a little neurotic, to say the least. I was maxed out on credit hours a semester at my university. I had to get out in 4 years or else my scholarship would run out, and I couldn't afford that. That mixed with some other things I'd rather not talk about affected me in a not so great way. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I was a big worrier.

After we got together I noticed I started to mellow. Things didn't stick to me like they used to, and the biggest sign something had changed was, I had stopped biting my nails.

This was huge for me. It had been a habit ever since I could remember. Something I had tried countless times to stop, and failed. Then I just stopped. It took me a while to notice, by the time I did, my nails were long enough for me to paint them. I couldn't believe it.

I was so proud to have nails, and I started painting them a new color every 3-5 days. My husband let me buy whatever nail polish I wanted, because in his words I could be addicted to worse things, like crack, haha.

My nails and my polish collection got pretty famous here in our village in Saudi Arabia. Girls started to want to borrow pieces from my collection, and even started asking me if I would paint their nails because I was so good at painting mine.

Finally, one of my friends voiced something I had been thinking about for a while. "Nicci, why don't you make nail polish? You love it so much, you should."

I talked to my husband about it, and being the wonderful man he is, he told me to go for it. I read up on the process, got advice from a fellow nail polish creator, bought all the supplies, and soon I had my first collection started.

Nail polish for me represents something more than what it is. It represents a part of my change, my metamorphosis from a neurotic girl, to a calm and collected woman.